It’s about no longer accepting the status quo without a fight. It’s about taking a look at the big picture of the world in which we live. Maybe Occupy’s message lacks clarity, but some kind of change is in the air.

And maybe it’s about time for small business owners to think about what all this means regarding how they operate.

I am sick and tired of my big bank emailing my statement with so many charges I don’t understand. A few years ago, those big bankers were happy to hold my money and lend it out, while paying me a little interest. Now I get four fees associated with one account, while the interest they pay is calculated in fractions.

During a flight to Florida in November, the airline wanted an extra $25 to handle my bag. For the first time, I carried on to save the money. It irritated the heck out of me.

And while you probably won’t find me attending a rally in the park, I am ready to start making changes in my business. I think all of the change in the air is an opportunity for every small business owner to make changes also.

There are so many options for young and small businesses to capitalize on this mood of change. If you are thinking about starting a business, this may be exactly the right time. People are looking for better products, fresh ideas and improved customer interactions.

Consider Greenling, a local and organic food delivery business. Although home grocery delivery is not new, focusing on local freshly grown produce may be the kind of change the industry needed to make a big impact in the market.

Are you holding off on learning how to incorporate social media into your business? Blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, and product and customer reviews are tools I recently used when buying a 3-D TV. Product reviews helped me pick a brand, and customer reviews of the sales experience helped me decide where to buy.

How we travel, buy, learn and live is changing. In small businesses, small changes can have a big impact. What can you do to improve customer interaction? Can you add a step to serving customers that enables them to benefit more from your service? Can you adjust your product so clients get more from using it? Just because you’ve been successful the way you’ve been doing things doesn’t mean there’s not room for improvement. To find out, we have to be willing to change.

As small businesses, let’s capitalize on the mood for change that Occupy personifies. Try these three steps:

•Profile your customer base. Identify commonalities in a segment. Reach out to those customers and survey them to see whether you can identify things you could do to help them with their priorities in 2012.

•Document an existing process within your business, such as your sales process, accounting or post-sale service. Ask your peers how they handle the same processes. Have they made changes or improvements? Buy a book on business process change.

•Evaluate the cost to make the change against the potential return on investment. Take the jump, make the change.

Everything changes. You don’t have to be first, but being last may mean you lose. Let’s heed Occupy’s message and challenge the status quo. Let’s improve what we are doing by making changes that tell our markets we are there for them, we care about them, and we want to help.

Brad Massey is president of Sandler Sales Institute–Austin www.massey.sandler.com.